flowchart TB A(Policy) --> B(Legislation) B --> C(Monitoring) C --> D(Analysis) D --> A
Environmental & Ecological Statistics is an incredibly broad term covering any form of statistics applied to environmental issues.
Key themes include climate change, environmental regulation (eg water and air quality), biodiversity monitoring and ecosystem assessment.
This course focuses on this theme rather than a particular type of statistical methodology.
We will look at a variety of statistical methods, some of which you will know, and some which will be new.
| Module | Week | Topic | Activities |
|---|---|---|---|
Environmental Monitoring & Data processing |
1 | Introduction to Environmental and Ecological Statistics | |
| 2 | Monitoring and Data mining | ||
| 3 | Sampling and Monitoring Networks | Lab 1 + Tutorial 1 | |
Measuring Environmental Change |
4 | Assessing Change Over Time | Tutorial 2 |
| 5 | Temporal Correlation and Changepoints | ||
| 6 | Modelling Environmental Extremes | Lab 2 + Tutorial 3 | |
Environmental and Ecological Spatial Statistics |
7 | Risk assessment and | Tutorial 4 |
| 8 | Geostatistical Data | ||
| 9 | Point process model | Lab 3 | |
| Special Lecture | 10 | Complex observational processess |
Lectures: 2 hours per week
Tutorials: 1 hour fortnightly
Practical: 2 hours three times throughout the semester
Assessment in this course includes continuous assessment and a final exam. The exam will take place in April/May.
Written Exam (75%) - Degree exam in the exam diet
Group Report (25%) - Group project running throughout the semester resulting in a group report
Written Exam (65%) - Degree exam in the exam diet
Group Report (25%) - Group project running throughout the semester resulting in a group report
Set Exercise (10%) - Critical review of published research
Students must submit at least 75% by weight of the components (including examinations) of the course’s summative assessment.
“Every breath of air we take, every mouthful of food that we take, comes from the natural world. And if we damage the natural world, we damage ourselves.”
Sir. David Attenborough
This brings increased focus and interest in statistics as a subject, and how we are working to handle topics like climate change.
Choose one of the graphs in the BBC article.
Think about what the good and bad aspects (if any) are.
Discuss with your neighbour(s) and find out what they thought about their chosen graph.
Add some of your thoughts to Mentimeter,
E.g. What graph you chose.
What is the graph’s purpose?
Does it do a good job at serving this purpose?
What did you like/dislike about the graph?
Measuring, sampling or monitoring environmental and ecological data, including variation and uncertainty.
Ecosystem assessment, detecting and modelling trends, including trends in time and space.
Modelling and understanding extreme data.
Environmental regulation and policy, and risk assessment.
We want to understand changes in the environment and species respond to these changes, in either time, space or both.
Our skills in presenting and communicating data are also crucial.
We need to be able to explain our findings to the public and show them why our work is important.
Only one person in ten lives in a city that complies with the World Health Organisation Air quality guidelines.
Only one person in ten lives in a city that complies with the World Health Organisation Air quality guidelines.
99 air quality monitoring stations have been set up across Scotland to capture PM\(_{2.5}\), PM\(_{10}\), NO\(_{2}\), NO\(_{x}\), SO\(_{2}\) and O\(_{3}\).
Live data available at
Monitor wildlife populations to halt biodiversity loss according the to National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP).
Monitor wildlife populations to halt biodiversity loss according the to National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP).
Goal 6 of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals is “Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all”. https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal6 (UN SDG 6 (clickable))
Once we have the samples, how can we use the data to understand water quality patterns?
Statistical modelling approaches are required, often spatial and temporal.
We need to understand and report our uncertainties.
Submarines have been used to measure Arctic sea ice.
The ice has shrunk both in terms of thickness and extent. -
We may soon see ice-free summers, which will have a devastating impact on sea life. -
Environmental policy tends to use very specific language - objectives, targets, guide values, standards, reductions relative to a baseline
Policy often prescribes monitoring quantities of interest over space and/or time.
Quantities of interest will include water, air and noise pollution, waste management, radioactive substances, biodiversity and animal and plant species
Legislation is the legal framework used to implement policy.
Most legislation focuses on setting targets or safe levels for the pollutants.
A number of regulatory bodies exist specifically to monitor such things, e.g. Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA, Scotland), the Environment Agency (EA, England) and the European Environment Agency (EEA, EU).
Assessment of long-term changes in natural conditions.
Assessment of long-term changes resulting from anthropogenic activities.
Ascertaining the magnitude and impacts of accidental pollution.
Assessing compliance with the standards and objectives of protected areas.
Quantifying reference conditions.
Environmental and Ecological statistics is a broad term covering many different techniques.
It can involve:
We need to communicate and present data and statistics to e.g. the public, government and subject-matter experts.
Piegorsch, W. W., & Bailer, A. J. (2005). Analyzing environmental data. Wiley. (Available from the University Library as an e-book here ).
Barnett, V. (2004). Environmental statistics: Methods and applications. Wiley. (Available from the University Library as an e-book here ).
Manly, B. F. J. (2001). Statistics for environmental science and management. Chapman & Hall/CRC. (No e-book available, but a physical copy is available from the University Library ).